REGISTER FOR SUMMER-FALL SHARES while Shares are still available!
Cooking well-rounded and nutritious meals can be hard, especially if your kids don’t think they like vegetables. It’s a real problem…you spend precious time and energy preparing fresh food for your family and then…they won’t eat it!😞
In my experience, joining a CSA can actually help with this problem by making your kids active participants in their food chain! Kids can accompany their parents to CSA pickups, meet the people who grow their food, meet other families who participate, and go home energized and excited to try some new things! Our CSA pickups are actually designed to be kid friendly…all the produce is arranged at “kid height,” allowing kids to help their parents select which carrots to take home, or whether they want to eat lettuce or kale this week.
When kids are connected to the farm, they are more likely to be involved in the food preparation and healthy eating at home. A CSA can really be a valuable and enriching experience for your whole family.
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Nutritionist Julie Negrin has the following tips for involving your youngsters in food prep:
1. Create a kids’ cooking station. Seat them at the dinner table or counter away from the heat so that you can whip up dinner with minimal interference.
2. Start small. Give toddlers little tasks that won’t slow down your meal preparation, such as stirring or rinsing off vegetables. You can increase their responsibilities as they age.
3. Give yourself plenty of time and multitask. Take advantage of those long days off from school and find a few recipes for them to cook that just happens to result in a family dinner.
4. Create the menu together. Encourage kids to explore cookbooks and websites for recipes. The more invested they are in the meal, the less likely they’ll whine about it.
5. Keep cleaning equipment close by. Enlisting kids in the cleanup will make the experience more pleasant for everyone — and teach them another essential life skill!
6. Invite a confident cook to help. If you’re a kitchen novice, this is an ideal time to learn alongside your kids. If you’re a confident cook, you’ll have some extra help.
7. Sign up for parent-and-kid cooking classes. You’ll pick up teaching tips, kid-friendly recipes and possibly new family friends.
8. Praise them. Providing for our kin is such a primal urge that kids feel an immediate sense of pride and self-worth when they feed their families, so make sure to gush over their hard work.
9. Accept that not all kids like to cook. Your non-cooking kids can still contribute to the meal by washing produce, setting the table, folding napkins, deciding which platters to use, garnishing the dishes, clearing the table and tasting each dish to determine if it needs additional seasoning.
Happy cooking!
We’re here to make it simple and easy for you to eat great local organic produce at home. We want to help you be healthy and happy! Join us this Summer…you deserve it!
